Freaks of Nature
by vaguelyartistic15
Summary: Eva Cassidy thought she had achieved normal- until an old friend loses someone to a suspicious apartment fire, her father goes off the grid without telling her or her siblings, and she agrees to hit the road again with her twin to find some answers. It all sort of goes downhill from there. (Also cross-posted on )


The air was bitingly cold, even for early November.

"_What light through yonder window breaks? It is the East, and Evelyn Cassidy is the fuckin' sun_". Joey reaches for his jacket with grabby hands, and Eva surrenders it with a low snort and a shake of the head.

"Dumbass", she says, not without humor. "It's Fall, you should've at least put on a sweater. And _Romeo & Juliet? _Really?"

"It's the only one he can quote from memory", Kelli snickers, and neatly ducks away from the elbow he tries to plant in her ribs. "It'll be good practice for when he has to teach it to a bunch of middle schoolers".

"I'm not going to teach _middle schoolers. _Tell 'em, Lucy".

Lucy (Joey's girlfriend since freshmen year), smiles patiently, finishes applying her lip gloss, and says, "Honey, do you really want me to answer that?"

He deflates like a popped balloon. Eva laughs and sits down on his left, settling her laptop in her lap and patting him on the back.

"It's okay", she says. "It's not like English majors have a tough time finding jobs".

"You guys _suck_".

"Hey, I had to run all the way back to the apartment for your stupid hoodie. You're lucky I'm such a good friend or I just would've let you freeze".

Kelli nods without looking up from her textbook. She's highlighting different pages in sections. "True. I definitely would have".

Joey grumbles under his breath and returns to his phone. It's a toss-up on who he could be emailing, but Eva knows his mother has been extra clingy lately, and that his cousin is visiting town next weekend.

"Speaking of leaving Joey out to dry, did you guys go to the Halloween party?" Lucy asks. She's graduated from lip gloss to flipping through her econ homework. There are notes in the margins that don't even look legible. "My roommate is still sleeping off her hangover".

"I'm surprised _you _aren't still sleeping off a hangover", Kelli replies. "I went as Catwoman and blacked out sometime after the third game of beer pong".

"Yeah", Eva chimes in, "I had to drive us home, remember?"

"Ugh, and you weren't _dressed up. _I practically had to wrestle you into that Michael Myers mask".

"You _know _I don't like Halloween".

Lucy clears her throat loudly. One eyebrow quirks up in amusement. "While listening to you two bicker is great for my self-esteem, I haven't gotten to the point: what are the odds that my roommate is an alcoholic?"

"Slim to none", says Joey, "Unless you are, too".

"Hallie's got her head on straight", Kelli agrees. "She probably got carried away".

Eva hums in accordance with the other votes and cracks open her computer screen. That biochemistry paper isn't going to write itself, as much as she wishes it would- the classes she missed a few months ago really put her behind.

Her friends continue to talk in small side conversations. The bench is warm enough with all of them clustered around it, and the weather isn't as bothersome now that Joey's stopped bitching. She types the first few sentences of an introduction, hits the backspace, and tries again.

Life goes on. Until, abruptly, it doesn't.

Erika- another student in their year, who lives on the floor above them -comes barreling down the sidewalk. Her backpack bounces up and down in between her shoulder blades and her cheeks are red with exertion, not just the cold.

"Uh, Erika", Joey says, as she runs past, "What the _fuck?_"

Erika stops so quickly that her sneakers squeak in protest. She has a bundle of papers clutched to her chest that don't seem to be in any particular order.

"I was walking to campus when I passed one of the apartment buildings", she wheezes. "S' got caution tape all around it. Did any of you hear sirens last night?"

"Sure", Kelli replies. "I was working late on a project. Sounded like fire trucks".

Eva frowns. She remembers the sirens, all right- the wailing had woken her up, and she hadn't been able to go back to sleep for an hour afterwards. The trucks had driven straight by and kept on going.

"A few police cars, too", she adds, reservedly. "Why?"

"There was a fire. I could see the broken window from the street, the brick around it was burned black". Erika takes a big gulp of air and lets it out in a gusty sigh. She shuffles her weight from one foot to the other. "The cops are saying it was electrical. A student here was killed".

Eva snaps her laptop shut with an audible _click. _Her pulse picks up like it always does when she hears the word _fire. _"You're kidding".

"I wish. Her boyfriend wasn't home, so he got off without a scratch, but she wasn't so lucky. Poor guy must be crushed".

It's not likely they'll recognize the name, but Lucy asks anyway, either out of politeness or plain curiosity. "Who was it? Do you know?"

"She was in my history class, but we weren't friends". Erika shrugs, but her face is pale. "Her name was Jessica Moore".

It isn't something that rings an immediate bell in Eva's mind. She doesn't have classes with anyone by that name, they weren't neighbors, and they didn't have mutual friends. But the pit in her stomach widens despite that, as though it's already aware of something she hasn't pieced together.

Eva's intuition is usually pretty good. It's this particular _brand _of intuition that scares her, a feeling she thought she'd kicked.

_Just an electrical fire, _she thinks. _Nothing more, nothing less._

And then the voice that never fails to remind her of her father speaks up, as if waiting for a cue: _are you sure about that?_

"That's awful", Eva says. "Really".

Erika nods, waves, and takes off again. Joey doesn't wait for her to be out of earshot to resume talking, and Kelli joins in; both of them having already dismissed the news and returned to their own problems. After a beat, Lucy joins in. It only takes a minute before she's smiling and laughing like before, as if nothing happened.

Eva reopens her laptop and does the same.

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"Okay, I wasn't going to say anything, but you've been weirdly quiet since this morning. What's wrong?"

Eva glances up from her book (a beaten, dogeared copy of _The Outsiders_) and makes a face. "Uh, what?"

"Don't bullshit me". Lucy flops onto the couch and crosses her legs behind her. She's wearing the carrot-colored pajamas that Joey got her last year for Christmas as a gag gift. "Something's bothering you. What is it?"

For a second, Eva considers lying, but the expression on her friend's face convinces her otherwise. "It's just…Jessica, I guess. I've got a bad feeling".

"You had a bad feeling about that transfer student, and he turned out to be okay".

"He was making meth in his parents' basement, Luce".

Lucy winces. "Right. But you know what I mean- shit happens. What's different about this that's got your panties in a twist?"

Eva sighs and tucks her legs underneath her. She wishes Joey and Kelli would come in and interrupt, but they left thirty minutes ago with the goal of smoking a blunt at a frat party. "My family doesn't have a good history with fires. My mom died in one when I was a baby".

Lucy's eyes widen to the size of saucers. She makes a vaguely surprised noise in the back of her throat, like they all do when learning the smallest tidbit about her childhood. "O-Oh. That's rough".

"Yeah". Eva resigns herself to a brief- albeit, heavily edited -recounting. "My Dad took it hard. Me and Winona spent a lot of time growing up on the road".

"…Who's Winona?"

"My…sister. I haven't seen her since I left for school".

Lucy sits up and makes a wide gesture with her hands. Usually, this specific motion is used when she's lecturing Joey. "I knew you had a sister. You visited her in the hospital, the beginning of September. But her name was Hanna".

"That's our youngest sibling". Eva had told everyone Hanna was injured in a car accident- which is, coincidentally, what she'd been told by the doctors over the phone. Their father hadn't been there, and Winona arrived two days after Eva left. "She grew up on the road, too".

"Sounds festive".

She laughs and runs a hand through her hair. It's gotten long enough that she might have to cut it soon, so the bangs won't get in her eyes. There was a time in her life when her father would've thrown a fit if the strands so much as brushed her shoulders.

Eva shakes off the memory. It's not something she needs to be reminiscing about.

"The fire bothers me", she says. "That's all. Promise".

Lucy pauses, but eventually the tension bleeds out of her shoulders. She reaches over to squeeze Eva's hand and then returns to the kitchen, where it looks like a bar exploded. Mixing cocktails is clearly not her forte.

Eva chews on her bottom lip for a second and puts the book on the coffee table, which is actually a slate of wood balanced on some cinder blocks (Joey broke the real one during a game of Twister gone wrong). She clambers nimbly out of the armchair to rescue some of their cups.

"We need these, ya know", she grumbles. "What is this supposed to be?"

"Not sure. Maybe a Bloody Mary?"

Eva's never actually had one of those before, although she did experiment quite a bit with alcohol in their freshmen and sophomore years. Come to think of it, maybe the alcoholic in the group was her.

She takes an experimental sip and immediately dumps the mixture into the sink. Lucy gasps, mock-offended, and flips the other woman the bird.

"Unless you're planning on poisoning your boyfriend", Eva says, "I wouldn't give this to anyone if you want their taste buds to work".

The blonde rolls her eyes, but flushes. She goes back to dumping different kinds of vodka and god knows what else into different glasses.

The brunette stops in the middle of turning on the faucet. Some of the water splatters onto her clothes, but it seems like the farthest thing from important. The Bloody Mary has turned the inside of the sink red.

"The boyfriend", she says abruptly, "Who was he?"

Lucy fixes her with a vaguely concerned stare. "What boyfriend?"

"The boyfriend of the girl who died. Erika said he wasn't home, so he didn't get hurt".

"Oh, I dunno. I talked about it with some guys who lived in the building during econ, but they didn't have a lot of information. Sam-something, I think. Why does it matter?"

"It doesn't. Sam?"

"That's what they told me".

"…Winchester?"

Lucy jumps and snaps her fingers. "_That's _it. Sam Winchester. You know him?"

"No". Eva swallows thickly. It sticks in the back of her throat and her mouth is suddenly very, very dry. "It's fine. So, Bloody Marys? What's next? Cyanide?"

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The most logical thing to do would be to find Sam.

The problem with that is Eva hasn't seen him since a New Year's Party thrown in 2004. They'd both been drunk, and the only memory she has of that night is sitting in a bathroom while he blew chunks into a toilet.

She's got a picture of them she doesn't remember taking. Her cheeks are pink, and Sam might be smiling, but he looks like he was hit by a truck.

Eva _does_ have his contact info, but it's old. She tries calling him the next morning, but an automated voice informs her that the number is disconnected. When she goes digging around campus, a few of his buddies say that he's not in the apartment anymore, but that's as far as they know.

She could sneak into the place and poke around, of course, but the idea makes her feel sick. It's put on the backburner almost immediately.

"You're quiet again", Lucy informs her, during lunch. "The fire, still?"

"No", Eva says. "I didn't get a lot of sleep".

That part is true. After hearing that Sam was involved, she hadn't been able to close her eyes until nearly 3am.

"I don't buy it", she says, undaunted. "Are you sure you don't know that Winchester guy?"

"_Yes_".

"Homework, then?"

"Definitely".

Thankfully, the conversation peters out before it can reach any level of emotional depth, and Eva waits until Lucy is gone to pull out her phone. She scrolls through her contacts and finds _George, _hovering over the name contemplatively. When was the last time she and her father talked? When she told him about the acceptance letter?

"Grade-A parenting", she mutters to herself. She keeps scrolling and finds _Winona; _stares at that name a margin longer, then goes back up to _Hanna._

Her youngest sister answers on the third ring.

"_Evie!_" Hanna trills. She sounds thrilled, and it tugs on the other's heartstrings. "_How've you been?_"

"I've been good", Eva says. She traces a pattern on the table with her pointer finger. "How's Winona?"

"'_Nona's good. You'd know if you guys talked every once in a while_".

"That's a separate conversation. What about Dad?"

"_Dunno. He's been pretty lowkey_".

Eva frowns. Hanna is nineteen- old enough to be alone, and she's got partners -but George had always treated her differently, and back at the hospital, the complaints about his hovering had been endless. "Seriously?"

"_Uh huh. What's up?_"

She grits her teeth. Steels her nerves. "I wanted to talk to you. About the family business".

"…_Telemarketing?_"

"The _real _family business. Has anything come up recently? Like- when Winona and I were six-months-old?"

Hanna is silent. Emily Cassidy wasn't her mother, but she grew up with the stories about her anyway- the ones George would tell willingly, at least. There weren't a lot, and oftentimes he wasn't sober when recounting them.

_You got her eyes, Evie, you know that?_

_She woulda loved you, Winona. You're just like her._

Eva has to clear her throat after a minute or two. "Han?"

"_R-Right. I haven't heard anything. Winona would've called. Why?_"

"You remember Sam Winchester?"

"_John Winchester's kid? Yeah_".

"Sam's girlfriend died a few days ago. I've been trying to find him, but no dice. It was a fire".

Another pause. Eva can almost hear the wheels in Hanna's brain turning through the receiver.

"_Our kind of fire, or a civilian kind of fire?_"

"Not sure. I've got a gut feeling it was _our_ kind of fire, though".

"_Have you told Winona?_"

"No. Not yet".

Hanna snorts derisively. "_You mean 'never'. I'll pass on the message. I'll tell Dad, too. Maybe he knows something we don't_".

"Maybe. Thanks. Bye, Han".

"_Bye_".

The dial tone clicks and starts droning tonelessly. Eva returns the phone to her pocket and pinches the bridge of her nose, hard. It does nothing for the headache steadily forming behind the twenty-two-year-old's eyes.

"Biochemistry paper", she says. "I have a biochemistry paper".

Funny. It no longer seems half as important as it should.

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The next night, Eva unlocks the door to the apartment and nudges it open with her hip. The lights are off, save for the struggling bulb over the garbage disposal, and there's a note on the fridge from Kelli: _gone to karaoke bar. Don't wait up._

Next to the hastily written scrawl is a smiley face and a terrible drawing of a microphone. Eva pictures Joey singing along to country music and smiles as she heats up the leftover takeout (Chinese noodles).

She'll eat in her and Kelli's room. It's gotten to be a bit of a mess lately, but her laptop is charging, and she doesn't feel like moving the port to the outlet by the couch.

Eva's been home for twenty minutes when she hears it.

To the untrained ear, it would've sounded like nothing. Probably just the walls creaking, or the building settling, or some other mundane excuse. But despite how hard she tries to bury that instinct, it recognizes the scrape of feet on hardwood floors, and Eva didn't hear anyone come in.

For a second, she thinks of the fire that killed Jessica. Then she's rooting around under her bed for the old duffel bag; the only thing she took with her from home that wasn't repurposed into something else.

A shovel, an iron knife, a small Latin translator, and a sawed-off. Eva grabs the gun, checks the rounds, and silently prays that it's not actually one of her roommates, because there's no way she'd be able to explain this to them.

When she opens the door, thankfully that doesn't turn out to be the case. But it isn't a demon, either, or even some random burglar who stumbled onto the wrong target.

It's dark, but the outline is still distinguishable as a young woman, no more than Eva's age. Her hair is dark and curly, and pulled back in a loose ponytail. It's the eyes- blue and sharp as knives -that get her to lower the gun.

"Winona", she says.

Her sister's lips pull back into a grin. Eva notes, startled, that what her twin lacks in height, she's made up for in muscle. She looks more confident than the last time they saw each other.

"Evie", she replies. "Hanna passed on your message. We need to talk".

"And you couldn't have knocked?"

Winona huffs and moves from where she's been standing. It's possible she was examining the picture frames Eva has lining the table next to the door (polaroids of her with her friends), but she's never been the sentimental type. Not outwardly, at least.

"Would you have let me in?" Winona asks. When Eva doesn't reply, her smile becomes more tight-lipped. "Uh huh. Is it true that Sam's girlfriend died in a fire?"

"…Yeah. It happened earlier this week".

"Sam wasn't home?"

"No". Before Winona can open her mouth again, Eva adds, "I don't know where he was, just that he arrived after. I've tried hunting him down, but his buddies don't know where he's staying. He might've left town".

Winona's forehead creases. "He didn't contact you?"

She shakes her head, unsure of what she could say that wouldn't sound suspicious. "I haven't heard from him in a while. I called Hanna yesterday, but she said you and Dad hadn't found anything recently. What the hell are you _doing_ here?"

Winona begins to pace back and forth across the living room, arms crossed over her chest, and Eva doesn't have the energy to tell her that she's scuffing the carpet. "When Hanna told me what you told her, I got worried. Sounded fishy, like you thought. So I decided to pop by and do some digging- I got an old friend to look into Sam's apartment, and he found traces of sulfur".

Eva's blood runs cold. The confirmation does nothing to settle her nerves, and that distant worry shifts uncomfortably in the pit of her stomach.

"I thought about going myself", she says, "but I couldn't".

Something moves in Winona's eyes. Perhaps understanding. "I called Dad, but he didn't answer. Got ahold of Hanna next and told her to try, but she didn't get anything, either. I swung by his last location on the way here and found nothing- checked out of his motel room, paid in cash, the hunt was finished. The clerk mentioned that he left with some guy, but I didn't get a description".

"So, he's..._gone?_"

"Gone. Missing. Take your pick. But there's no way it's a coincidence".

Unfortunately, Eva agrees. The reappearance of the demon, the involvement of Sam, and the disappearance of their father could never be mistaken as anything other than deliberate. The real question wasn't why he'd gone off the grid, but why he hadn't told them, or gotten them to join him.

"He ditched you", she says.

"Ditched _us_". Winona's tone shifts into more confrontational territory. "He would've told me. Or Hanna, or any number of his old pals, or you. Even if it was a kamikaze, last-ditch goodbye message, he would've".

The unspoken words hang in between them: _or maybe he wouldn't._

Eva resists the urge to pace like her sister. She props the sawed-off against the wall and tries not to overanalyze how easily she'd been able to hold it, after three years. "So, what do we do?"

"We?"

"Why _else_ would you be here in person?"

Winona looks her up and down, not quite appraisingly, but as if she's trying to discern whether or not Eva could be lying. Eventually, she admits, "I didn't want to do it alone".

"What about Hanna?"

"She's our baby sister. And she wasn't- _in it, _like us, I guess. You and I were, always, right up to when you left".

Eva remembers. _The two of us against the world, _she used to think, and wow, what a load of bullshit _that _turned out to be. Of their own volition, nonetheless.

Winona says, "We need to find Dad".

She wipes her sweaty palms on her jeans. She thinks of Kelli, Joey, and Lucy, who are probably jamming to shitty accompaniment a few blocks away, and she thinks of hiding that hunting duffel bag under the bed, like she could sweep the whole mess under the rug.

Eva says, "I know".

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_Hey, guys._

_My sister stopped by while you were gone. She said my Dad's in some deep shit, and they need me to come home for a while, so we can sort it out together. I don't know how long I'll be gone, and I know this is really sudden, but I promise I'll be back as soon as possible. I already contacted my professors and the school._

_I left an envelope on the counter, too. It's got enough cash it in to pay for my share of the rent for at least a couple of months. I'll send more when I can._

_Don't worry too much. Lucy, that's directed at you. Kelli, I promise this is real, and I haven't been kidnapped against my will. Joey, I'm making the mistake of trusting you into talking some sense into them._

_I'll miss you. Call me in the morning._

_Eva._

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The car is parked on the curb. It's an old model- 1959 -and painted blue.

"You're driving the Plymouth?" Eva asks, surprised. She adjusts the duffel bag slung over her shoulder and drops it into the backseat when Winona unlocks the doors. "I thought Dad would rather eat his own foot than part with his ride".

Winona half-shrugs as she clambers into the driver's seat. "He changed his tune when I went solo".

"And how long ago was that?"

"I had just turned twenty, so- two years?"

Eva remembers her twentieth birthday. She'd been working the late shift at a fast food place, where Kelli was also a dishwasher. The closest thing to a present the brunette had received was an Employee of the Month certificate.

"Not bad", she says, in lieu of awkward silence. "Have you crashed it yet?"

Winona gives her a look as she puts the Plymouth into drive. The way the engine purrs brings back a lot of conflicting memories, and Eva doesn't know whether she should feel nauseous, nostalgic, or a combination of the two.

The elder of the twins focuses stubbornly on the road, reminiscent of when they would argue during trips between states. One would pretend to be alone while the other would glare until they received a sign of acknowledgement.

Eva fidgets. The leather squeaks. "Where to first?"

"Maire's place". Winona taps her fingers on the steering wheel and glances briefly at the radio. "She'll be happy to see you".

Maire Cooper- an old friend of George Cassidy's, and a former babysitter -was someone she hadn't spoken to since the ripe age of fifteen. The most contact they'd had since that summer was the occasional postcard.

"Maire", she mumbles. "Still living in Wyoming?"

"Ye-_ep_".

"How long a drive?"

Another shrug. "You're the smart one, do the math".

Eva is well aware of the math, unfortunately. It'll be more than a day if they stop at motels for breaks. Absently, she wonders if that old puzzle book is still in the glovebox; the one with Hanna's two-year-old crayon scribbles, and Winona's half-finished sketches.

She's thinking about checking when they drive by what was Jessica Moore's building. She recognizes it because of the leftover caution tape, and the scorch marks Erika mentioned.

Eva makes a note to ask Maire for John Winchester's number. Maybe he'll be more forthcoming then their own father.

Her phone starts to ring in her pocket before the idea can be considered further. She knows without looking that it's Kelli, calling several hours earlier than she should.

Winona looks at her again. "You going to answer that?"

She shakes her head. There's a ring dangling from the rearview mirror, on a chain. It swings back and forth like a pendulum, and if Eva squints, she can make out the inscribed writing on the inside of the band. It's distracting.

_All my love – George._

"Later", she says, unnecessarily.

Her stomach aches with something that's not quite homesickness. When she falls asleep, she dreams of flames.


End file.
